Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to tokens for unlocking secure systems or data. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method and system for secure peer-to-peer mobile communications.
Brief Description of the Related Art
A variety of systems and methods for secure authentication using a token have been used in the past. Such smart tokens may be in the form of smartcards, USB tokens or other forms. Conventional smartcards typically are credit-card sized and made out of flexible plastic such as polyvinyl chloride. Smartcards have been used in a wide variety of applications, such as identification badges, membership cards, credit cards, etc. Conventional USB token are typically small and portable and may be of any shape. They are embedded with a micromodule containing a silicon integrated circuit with a memory and a microprocessor.
Traditional plastic card ID credentials rely on printed inks and tamper evident materials like holograms, printed static 2D barcodes, and passwords for security and to protect user data from modifications. To verify these traditional cards, readers employ multimodal optical and wavelength sensors in an attempt to verify a user's identity printed on the card.
Smartcards can be either “contact” or “contactless.” Contact cards typically have a visible set of gold contact pads for insertion into a card reader. Contactless cards use radio frequency signals to operate. Other smart tokens connect to other devices through a USB or other communications port.
Smart cards typically may have information or artwork printed on one or both sides of the card. Since smart cards are typically credit card sized, the amount of information that may be displayed on a smartcard is typically limited. A number of efforts have been made to increase the amount of data that may be displayed on a smartcard. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,270,276 discloses a multi-application smartcard having a dynamic display portion made, for example, of electronic ink. The display on that card changes from a first display to a second display in response to an application use of the smartcard. Another example is U.S. Patent Publication Serial No. US2005/0258229, which disclosed a multi-function smartcard (also known as an “integrated circuit card” or “IC card”) with the ability to display images on the obverse side of the card.
A display of images on a flexible display within a card typically implements an active pixel matrix display type display which has the ability to show 8 or more degrees of gray scale on each pixel. The two dimensional array of these gray scale pixels generate an image of a cardholder face. A segmented type flexible display has only two states (black or white). A group of seven segments will comprise any single digit number whereas a group of 14 segments will denote any alphabetic or numeric letter or digit. The display and control circuitry is much more simplistic for segmented displays than for active matrix displays. The present application addresses only segmented flexible bi-state displays for secure ID credentials.
Access control stations typically located on the boundary of the security area or building use some method to verify or authenticate the uses who are allowed access. The general methods to authenticate include one or more of the following defined as 1, 2, or 3 factor authentication:                1. What you have—a card or ID machine or visually checked by a guard        2. What you know—a password typed into a keypad        3. What you are—a physical biometric attribute comparing a pre-stored “template”        
to a live scan using some hardware at the access control station
There are many shortfalls and added system complexities for implementing these access control methods like; user data must be stored on a database or within the card securely, cards can be duplicated or lost, passwords can be hacked, biometrics are difficult and costly to store and scale to larger access control networks.
More recently, biometric thumb drive tokens and smartcards have proven ineffective and non-secure. These shortcomings vary but complexity, scalability, and interoperability are common causes. It was found that biometrics are challenging to enroll and deploy when the user's information is stored and retrieved on a central database.
Other shortfalls with 3-factor authentication using cards and access control portals are portability, scalability, and verification the machine-based authentication actually happened. This part of the transaction is usually completely transparent to the user and/or verifying official until the end of the process.
Recently, efforts have been made to incorporate displays into RFID cards and tags. For example, in U.S. Patent App. Pub. No. 2010/0052908 entitled “Transient State Information Display in an RFID Tag,” a display is incorporated into an RFID card to show a transient state such as an age of a product. In the preferred embodiment disclosed in that patent, a card or tag reader provides a current date while the card provides the expiration date of the product. Based on a comparison of those two, an LED is illuminated to reflect the status of the product. The disclosure indicates that a variety of other types of displays may be used and also that the card may be active or passive. In another example, U.S. Patent App. Pub. No. 2010/0079416 entitled “Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), Display Pixel, and Display Panel and Display Apparatus Using RFID Display Pixel” discloses an RFID tag connected to an “RFID pixel” or plurality of “RFID pixels.” Another example is described in U.S. Patent App. Pub. No. 2009/0309736 entitled “Multifunction Contactless Electronic Tag for Goods.”
Additional examples in those disclosed in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2012/0181333 entitled “ID Credential with Bi-State Display for Unlocking Devices and U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2011/0279242 entitled “Batteryless Stored Value Card with Display.